Picking Up the Pieces
by PickleBrandenboughj
Summary: AU where the Admiral didn't go back in time. What made the Admiral so sad and bitter in the first place, and what else happened in those sixteen extra years on Voyager that she didn't say? Starts in year ten. Warning: Character death. C/7, then J/C. All characters belong to Paramount.
1. The Death

"Hi." She said weakly.

"Hi there." He sobbed.

Kathryn Janeway tried to wordlessly slip away, but Seven caught her hand and held it. "Captain, please stay."

Janeway paused, looking from the bleeding Seven of Nine to the crying Chakotay. "I'd be honoured," she said quietly and held an unresponsive hand of Seven's. "I can't feel my fingers..." Seven commented, "but I feel less cold. How... peculiar." She breathed a one-syllable laugh and then arched her back, wrenched her limbs and moaned. "It's... hurting me!"

Chakotay sobbed loudly, and Kathryn, not Captain Janeway, the captain of the star ship Voyager, felt hot, salty tears well, but she stared at the ceiling until she felt that she wasn't in danger of crying again. She looked back down at Seven, at the gaping hole in her abdomen, the blood pooling around her hips on the floor, the torn, shredded pieces of pink, fleshy intestines that she could see all the way through to the cold, metallic ground. Her tears came rushing back, but Kathryn held her breath until she stopped.

"Please, don't stop... talking. I wish to hear... you both... talking... here..."

"Seven, save your strength," Chakotay begged, but Seven shook her head. "Talk, please."

"The doctor is on the way," Kathryn said but she barely heard herself.

"Good... I wish... to hear the... the... him speak."

"Shh," Chakotay whispered. "Please, be alright, Seven." He brushed blood spattered blonde hair out of her face.  
"Let my... down... it." Seven breathed, and Chakotay stared at her. "What?" he asked, the word getting stuck on the oesophagus, the tongue, the teeth and it came out mangled, desperate and high pitched. When he got no answer, he was so desperate to please her, so afraid she was dying that he grabbed her shoulders tighter, bent down closer and screamed; "What? What, what, what?"

"Chakotay," Kathryn whispered and took the clasps out of Seven's hair so that it hung loose. Seven smiled her gratitude, as she was too weak to do anything else.

"Today I listened to a letter that came with the Starfleet transmission," Kathryn said quietly. "They gave Icheb the rank of Junior Ensign. He's an ensign, Seven." She whispered and Seven let her eyes divert to Kathryn's pallid, cold, terrified face. "Icheb...?"

"Yes. We were going to have his party in two days' time. I was going to tell you on the planet before we were attacked. You'll come to the party, right?" Her voice broke at the end, but she used every inch of her captain's resolve to not cry.

"Yes..." Seven whispered. "I will at... attend."

"And let's not forget that I promised to show you how to use makeup. That'll be fun, huh?"  
"I know how to... apply make up. I... just want to... do it with... my friend..." Seven breathed heavily between words, heaved her chest high, desperate for breath, but found none. "Chakot... Chakotay."

"Yes?" He asked and wiped splatters of a scarlet red blood off of her face and smiled.

"I lo... love... iloveyou. You." She said and stared hazily at him and he kissed her softly. "I love you too, Seven. Please, please," he lowered his forehead to her lips. "Don't go." He raised his head again, and looked to Kathryn.

"I love you too... captain... loo... look after Icheb... and Chakotay... and the Doctor... and, and, and..."

She lolled her head to look at Kathryn and smiled a smile that pierced Kathryn as much as any phaser, phaser rifle or torpedo. It shattered her with its purity, drew her breath with its perfection and choked her with its deadness.

Chakotay stared at Seven and shook his head. "No, no, no, nononononono!" he repeated over and over as her patted her cheek and shook her shoulders, even tried kissing her as hard as he could. Kathryn just felt this terrible ball of nothingness in her lungs, and stared at the dead thing. That surely couldn't be Seven. Not her Seven. Not the little Annika Hansen who was assimilated. Not the Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Uni-Matrix Zero One. Not the young woman who got married just six months ago, who wanted four children, who wanted to explore her creativity in clothes designing, as of late, and wanted to learn to use make-up.

But she didn't.

And then the nothingness turned to terror and anger.

She was kneeling in an inch of Seven's blood. Her hands were stained scarlet, she survived, her face was stained with tears, but she survived.

Seven wanted to learn how to be a balanced individual, but Kathryn survived. Seven never got a chance, but Kathryn survived.

Why did you survive? She asked herself.

Why didn't you die?

Why didn't you stop this from happening?

Why?

Why?

Why?  
Why?

WHY?!

"Why." Kathryn said quietly, but it wasn't a question. She could hear her own pulse, each one asking why. She could feel her uniform on over her, but even her uniform seemed distant.

Then Chakotay howled a loud, long cry and buried his face in Seven's neck.

The Doctor came in, and cried out, before rushing to Seven's side, but it didn't matter but Kathryn couldn't hear a sound. She barely registered the Doctor. Seven was dead.

But surely this woman was an impostor, and the real Seven of Nine was in astrometrics, making star charts, she thought in between the Doctors screams.

Seven would raise her eyebrows at them and call them impulsive and naive for crying over this impostor's body. Yes. That's what's going on.

That was much easier to believe.

But if that was the case, and Seven was fine, why couldn't she leave this body's side? She tried to stand, but she couldn't. She couldn't even take her eyes off of the Doctor or Chakotay as they both tried to revive the impostor. Someone should inform them that it wasn't really Seven. But it wasn't going to be her. Her heart and her brain and her lungs were too far away from her mouth. She couldn't breathe, let alone articulate a sentence.

"Seven," the Doctor moaned softly and hugged his best friend.

Kathryn looked down at the blood and sighed.

Why?

Seven was dead.  
Why?

Seven wasn't dead.

Why?

That's not Seven.

Why?

Breathe in.

Why?

Breathe out.

Why?

I don't want to be here.

Why?

I don't want this.

Why?

I want to be dead.

Kathryn Janeway stood up and looked around the transporter room. The blood would easily come off of the floor and be washed away, but she thought with numbness, it would never come off of her hands. Seven's blood would be on her hands until the day she died.

She walked outside and to the bridge. People gasped when they saw her, but she could barely see them. None of them mattered. Seven was dead.

"Captain." Tuvok said. Kathryn looked behind her, and saw that her blood-covered uniform had dripped and splashed a trail of blood behind her wherever she went.

"Are you alright, Captain?" He asked.

"No." She said in her head. Outside she looked at him stoically and said; "Of course. Now lock in a course for the Alpha Quadrant." She sat in her seat and stared at the screen numbly.

Tom Paris looked back at her and did it, but he didn't even say 'yes ma'am'.

They knew what had happened.

They knew Seven was dead.


	2. The Sporadic Gesture of Affection

"I'm fine, mister Kim."  
"But-"  
"I'm going to the bridge."  
"But-"  
"Leave me alone."

She was advised by mister Kim to stay in bed, but her bed was quiet and threatened to sink her, to consume her happiness and her body and never spit her out, never willingly let go. She learned her lesson the last time, and Phoebe wasn't around this time to splash her with water.

She took a sonic shower and felt the dirt remove every molecule of Seven that was stuck to her bare flesh. She came out and went to her sink. She stared at the mirror, but the woman looking back at her with stony eyes and an old, weary face scared her, shamed her. She looked down at her hands, washed them at the sink with soap harshly. She listened to her ragged, quiet breathing and glanced up again. How long could she stand her own, judging glare?

She gulped and looked down again. "Ugh," scrubbed her hands harshly. She heard a knocking and her comm badge chirruped. "Kim to Janeway."

She would have responded, but she didn't want to.

And her hands weren't clean yet.

Ensign Kim was annoyingly persistent. "Captain?"

_I'm washing my hands, Ensign, leave me privacy at least. And you wonder why you aren't a lieutenant?_

She tilted her head. She enjoyed the sharp, icy feeling she got when she bent her fingers. It was distracting.

_' "I can't feel my fingers... but I feel less cold. How... peculiar." '_

She practically tore into her fingers and palms.

"Captain!" Harry Kim came into the room and all of his Starfleet training left him just as unprepared. "You need to wear a robe, or a towel or something!" He said and stared intently at the ground. Did fussing make him feel better?

"When I'm done washing my hands."

"Captain, please." He held out a blue towel for her, but kept his eyes on the metallic ground. She wrenched her hands away from the water and took the damned towel. He was shaking, _shaking_, because he was ashamed of himself that he'd seen her. She felt a mild tightening in her stomach, and no doubt yesterday she would have died of mortification. But what was something small like that compared to something gaping?

Small like an individual. Gaping like a hole in their stomach.

She dismissed Ensign Kim and got dressed. She went to the bridge. She stared at the monitors and the blinking lights. She inhaled and exhaled. She asked herself why with every breath. She got annoyed with it and it's constancy. It's way of starting as a whisper, and never getting louder, but being there so much that it pounded her skull, and burned her eyes. She then realised she was the only senior officer on the bridge. The others were mourning.

One thing she did not do was think about Seven. Thinking led to mourning. Mourning led to admitting. She was happily miserable in her all too knowing, self-imposed ignorance.

The next day she filed reports, excluding any to do with recent events. They said she was struggling.

The day after she revised her entire first year at the academy. They said she was grieving in her own way.

The day after that, she revised the second year. They said she was heartless.

The day after that, she filed a report on Seven's death. The rest had been done by Tom Paris. She'd need to remember that. She just needed one Captain's Log. One Captain's Log about Seven of Nine.

"Lieutenant Seven of Nine, alias Annika Hansen, died on an away mission. I want to note her commendable bravery, and that she saved my life. The Lilijurak offer no apologies. We have made an enemy, simply because they find us hard to kill. Seven of Nine and..."

_"Kathryn!" Seven screamed and took Janeway's pulse. She did more urging, willing for Janeway to wake up. The captain rolled her head to Seven and frowned. "Since when are we on a first name basis?" And Seven laughed with relief. Janeway smiled. "I assume we've been abducted?"  
"Correct."  
"And we're stuck here, in this cell?"_  
_"Correct."_  
_"... I'm going to indulge on so much holiday when I get home. A hundred years, about."_  
_"Well then maybe you'd have time to try on the replicator parameters I gave you."_  
_"You're stubborn, aren't you?"_  
_"I learned from the best."_

She couldn't breathe. She pulled on her polo-neck until it stretched but she couldn't breathe. Her pips snapped and fell to the floor, but her lungs were on fire with the lack of oxygen. She opened her mouth and in her ready room she whimpered. Then she brought her forehead to the table and howled three long sobs that racked her shoulders.

She breathed and stopped very suddenly. She picked up the pips, clipped them back on and sat upright. Her composure was without fault. She vowed that she wouldn't do that again. Never again would she cry like that. It all happened so fast that maybe if she pretended like she didn't do it, it might just go away.

She realised that she was still recording a log. "Computer. End log."

She didn't have time to make another one. She wanted to talk to someone- someone who she could always talk to in times of need.

=/\=

"Get on him, Chakotay!" Boothby roared and raised his own fists like he would fight as Chakotay's shadow.  
_I preferred it when my shadows didn't talk back, _he thought, but he kept it to himself.

"Come on! I want a real barnburner! Take a punch in the shoulder and not the chest, and for the love of God-"  
Chakotay didn't hear him. He saw a weakness in the enemy's line- when did he start calling his opponents _enemies_?- and brought his entire fist up below the man's ribs. The man was literally lifted in to the air by an inch or two and fell, off of his feet.

But the attack wasn't over.

Chakotay placed one knee over the man's neck, before pummeling the stomach until it was tender, purple and pink. He couldn't help thinking it was like a nebula coloured like...

Oh Spirits.

Coloured like her biosuit. The magenta one.

So, you see, he couldn't leave it like that. He had to keep going until it changed colour. When it went a black and blue colour it didn't serve him any better. All he saw was the massive gaping hole that was in her stomach and even when he pinched the sides together, they almost wouldn't meet, and he couldn't fix it. He had just waited and cradled her until the Doctor tried to transport her to the morgue and he had punched the Doctor in his god damned shiny face, but it had gone right through and he'd had to let her go and he'd have to attend a funeral service and-

"Chakotay!" Someone yelled in his ears and pulled him down to his back. He almost turned around and almost went for a low blow until he realised who it was.

"Hey, Commander," Kathryn said quietly, "you done?"

Chakotay looked at her and crossed his legs into a sitting position and gestured for her to do the same. "Why'd you come here?" Chakotay asked and wiped his face with a towel he took from one of the ropes.

"It's dark in here," Kathryn commented. Chakotay took her face in his hands. "Why. Are. You. Here?"

Kathryn wriggled, obviously nervous. "I need to talk."

"Me too." Chakotay said and leaned his forehead against hers and panted heavily. His head was still pounding from the exhilarating sensation of reducing a man's body to a writhing, pulpy mass.

"Your forehead is sweaty." She remarked and put her hands on his face. They were interlocked in one another, their hands touching both of their faces and their knees touching at where their legs bent.

"It's what happens when you exert yourself. No-brainer, I would have thought."

She smiled to him in a 'you're-insufferable-and-I-like-that-in-you-but-I-won't-admit-it-ever' sort of way.

"I think I'm insane." She whispered.

"I know you're insane."

Kathryn raised an eyebrow. "Well that's comforting."

"I haven't relieved you of command since the first time I realised. It means it's the best possible kind of crazy, you know."

"Oh sure," and she looked at Chakotay suspiciously. He glared back and they had a competition between themselves. He blinked and Kathryn smiled again, victorious, until she relinquished her grip on the corners of her cheeks and they fell. "You make me feel better, you know."

He bristled. "I like being around you too."

"Come on then. I told you something I never told anyone else. Your turn."

"I wish I had done something more." Chakotay said and lowered his eyes from her gaze. Kathryn nodded and gulped. "Me too. We all feel like that." She closed her eyes and their noses touched too.

"But maybe if we'd gone to sick bay first-"

"They fired as we beamed up. I didn't think to do something-"

"I'm not blaming you, Kathryn." Chakotay opened his eyes and looked at her pained face.

"I'm not sure if I hate that or if I'm relieved."

Silence passed between the two. Kathryn adjusted her body to kneel, sitting on her heels and wrapped up in him like a blanket. Chakotay just breathed like an injured animal.

"I have no idea how to respond to that."

"Then tell me why you're breathing like that."

"I've been here for about four hours."

"Boxing?"

"Trying to."

"Four hours?"

"Yeah. And Spirits, I'm tired. I'm just gonna fall asleep right here." He rested his head on her shoulder. Kathryn smiled for the first time in days into the hug.

Then he snored.

"You _can't_ be serious." She took his head off of her shoulder and faced him. He had drool coming out of his mouth and she shuddered when she saw some on her shoulder. "Ugh," She moved her hair away from her shoulder and picked up his towel to wipe it off. She had thought he was exaggerating a bit, but no. No, he actually fell asleep. On her shoulder. It never occurred to her to wake him. Or maybe, if it did, she ignored that suggestion and gave it a death glare.

"Computer, initiate a site to site transport for Commander Chakotay and I to his quarters." She thought about trying to drag him anywhere. "To his bed, specifically." Safety precautions.

They both shimmered blue and their molecules floated in the air like dust before they reappeared on a bed that looked like someone had torn into it. The blanket was actually torn, the sheets had been pulled from the corners. "Restless sleeper, huh?" She said, but she knew she wouldn't get a reply. He was more deeply asleep, she guessed, than he was since the day. His face was as peaceful as Harry Kim was a gangster, or as Tom Paris was a monk.

She gently let him slide his head down her arm and pulled a pillow from the side up the bed and put it under him. She pulled the blanket on over him and for a small, minuscule earth shattering moment wondered what it would be like to get under them with him.

He was beautiful. Really, truly beautiful. Not just his skin, or his hair or his eyes, but his laugh and his smile and his breath and his stance. It was all like a sweet, sweet drug she'd grown accustomed to.

And, as sure as any drug addict who'd grown accustomed to her fix, she needed to escalate.

She bestowed upon him a spontaneous gesture of affection.

In other words, she kissed him. She enjoyed the former phrasing much more. It took people longer to figure it out.

She kissed him long and hard and let her rage and heart-break and passion into it. All her loneliness bled into it, and she let a fair amount of the smiles and touches they shared in the past in as well. All of her emotions crowded in, like angry bees swarming over an intruding child to their hive. Then he began to respond. And, unfortunately, that was when he woke up.

"Hmm?" He said first, then they both opened their eyes, jumped back and stared at one another.

"Kathryn." He growled.

"I'm sorry." She blurted.

"Get out. You, you have to get out!" He stood up. He looked terrified.

"What?"

"I said; get out! What were you- how could you- why would you-"

"I'm so sorry." She said and turned to leave with whatever part of her dignity she felt she had left.

"How could you even do that to Seven? You were her best friend."

Kathryn stopped walking and turned slightly. He said the S- word. She didn't want to hear this. She faced the door and kept walking.

"Coward! You can't even face me properly and tell me why!"

_Why why why why why why why why why!  
_

It echoed in her head. It bounced around and tore into her brain.

"Kathryn, you coward. Why?" That was when she realised he just wanted to _fight_. He'd been out boxing for four hours and he had so much pent-up anger from that day that -

He grabbed her shoulders, turned her around and he shook her so hard that her head lolled back and forth. "Why?!" He asked.

When he stopped she parted her legs slightly and put her hands on her hips."Excuse me but I'm still your-"

"Seven is dead for four _days_, Kathryn! What kind of vulture are you? Waiting until the target finally drops dead before you swoop in?! You're like a monster."

Kathryn was stunned speechless. She felt cold saliva at the back of her mouth and when she opened her mouth to object again, she flaunted it up and down like a goldfish before giving up. She couldn't disagree, so she stood there and stared at the floor, willing it to do something. Anything.

"My Seven is dead so you think it might help if you started a relationship _now!_?"

"I'm lonely."

That took him by surprise.

"Kathryn. Just leave me alone. I've lost everything and your lonely? I'm too... too..." He took a breath and shook his head. "I'm sorry, Kathryn, I didn't mean to-"

"Self centred?" She suggested.

"What?"

"You're too self-centred?" Now that she had started, she was picking up momentum. "Like I _haven't _lost Seven? Like she was a passing acquaintance who I never really spoke to? Like I wasn't there when she died? Huh?" She might as well move in for the kill now. "Her last words were to _me._"

"Kathryn, this isn't like you."

"You aren't like yourself either. What that was just there was assault of a commanding officer." She spat and he averted his dark gaze to the floor. She continued. "And what _is_ like me? You wouldn't know any more! Think about all the rain checks and times you just didn't bother showing up. I'm not your wife, but we're _supposed_ to be best friends. Tell me, do you know what I do in my quarters?"

"Kathryn, what kind of question is that?"

"Wrong! I haven't been _in_ my quarters. I work in my ready room until I fall asleep and take sonic showers in the public lavatories. When's the last time you've been to my quarters?"

"I assume you're going to tell me?"

"Ten months ago." She said, and suddenly the wind was knocked out of her sails. She and Chakotay weren't close any more. Seven was dead. She sounded like a prima donna.

Then there was crying. It wasn't Chakotay. It wasn't Kathryn.

It was the baby.

It was Seven and Chakotay's damned baby.

"Gah." Chakotay said and stopped looking at Kathryn and went over to the newly awakened small blonde girl. She was bigger than the last time Kathryn saw her. Partly because she had avoided the baby. "Shh Kathryn, shh." For a second Kathryn thought Chakotay was talking to her, but no. He held her replacement, mockingly also called Kathryn. And when Kathryn looked into the baby's unfocused, blue eyes she saw Seven, clear as day and as painfully reminding as a grave stone would be, if not more. The baby made noise. The baby needed attention.

Much more, she decided.

Then the sight of the baby that had a dead woman's face and a stolen name was too much.

Kathryn turned, but Captain Janeway walked out. Kathryn's last thoughts were if it was possible to hate someone you loved. She decided it was, and it made you the loneliest person on the ship.

The Captain's thoughts were; 'It'll be okay if I can just finish my report. Everything will be okay.'

**Hi, so... what did you think? I'd love any reviews you leave for me, it makes me smile and give chocolate to orphans and stuff like that when you do. Thank you so much for reading!**


	3. Candle Creatures and Cybernetic Chases

**A/N: Sorry the update took a while. School and what not, it gets in the way of things, lol. Well anyways, I just wanted to say a huge thank you to all of you who followed, favourited and commented. You made my day, and were often the only thing that really made me sit down and write this chapter.  
****Another thank you to my brilliant beta, Amalasuinthe. You rock 3.**

**That being said, I hope like hell you enjoy this chapter, since it's a set up for later ones too.**

The Doctor was a hologram. He, originally, would have felt nothing after the death of Seven of Nine because in his head his program used to be a perfect square. If you'd like to put it into something Organics could understand.  
And he very much did want an Organic to understand.

So, at the very start the Doctor was, put simplistically, a 'square'. Then he saw met Kes. Let's call Kes an octopus, shall we? Yes, we shall. Now, Kes was an octopus, a lovely Cephalopoda Mollusc with spots and with eight gangly legs and a big bulbous head and a beak and who knows what.

Now imagine how a Square feels compared to an Octopus. He feels jealous. He feels second-rate. He feels cheated. And, most importantly, he feels inspired.

If you want to carry this little analogy even further, you could say Kes helped him become a pentagon, then a hexagon, a heptagon, an octagon, an enneagon and Danara Pel made him a decagon. Then Kes' leaving and every event that had happened on Voyager itself, little by little, made him a big, curving, spiking, sprawling irregularity. He had a personality and memories, quirks and theories. In fact, he was more like a myriagon now.  
But the point of this was that before, his polished, square self would not felt anything. Now he, a self-described myriagon, felt nothing. And everything.

He thought of the good things. He thought of never having another good thing with her. He thought of not being able to let her know that he had indeed hugged her body and performed his official duties efficiently. He thought about her blonde hair. He thought about her shiny Borg implants that she'd given up years ago, only for her legs to shut down.

_"Doctor." She sat with the composure of a captain in her short wheel chair. "I don't want to be in this chair."_

_"Seven," he knelt down to her. Sickbay lights dimly lit any shiny surfaces and her face was heavy with sleep and her eyes seemed to be the 'colour' of determination. "Seven I can't 'fix' you." He looked at the floor. But... your Borg implants can."_  
_"No." She snapped. He looked to her, pained. She softened her tone. "You are asking me what prison I'd rather, Doctor. All I know is..." She looked at her legs, "I lose a  
bigger part of myself if I go back to the Borg. Legs," she waved at the dead flesh, "will not help me love."_  
_"You'd be surprised," the Doctor said dryly, but Seven merely shook her head._

_"Legs can't help me like emotions can. I _need_ my emotions. My only regret," she sniffled and the Doctor leaned in and pressed her head to his shoulder. She continued. "My one regret," she leaned back and smiled, "is that I'll never win another game of velocity."_  
_The Doctor looked at her, smiled and shook his own head. He brushed away a tear that rolled. "Seven," he began, "I'll _always_ be worse at velocity than you."_  
_Did it matter that he was capable of processing information faster than any living species in the Alpha Quadrant? No._  
_Did it matter that depending on his forcefield to area ratio he could be stronger than any living species in the Alpha Quadrant? No._  
_Did it matter that, for all of this, he couldn't just program a friend like Seven? Yes. Yes it did._

But most of all, infuriatingly, he just thought about spiders. He didn't want to think about spiders but, as Tom Paris had put it, Seven of Nine had turned into a bit of an 'Arachnia, Queen of the Spider People'. She had a fascination with Spiders. Spiders, spiders. Long legged, venomous creatures that preferred the dark. It was so... unnecessary to think of them, but they recurred most when he thought of Seven of Nine.

_"Cephalothorax is connected to the... coxa." the Doctor sang and Seven hummed along with him. "The coxa's connected to the... trochanter. Trochanter's connected to the... femur. The femur is connected-"_  
_"Patella, tibia, metatarsus, and finally a tarsus which may end in two or three small claws. That is the genetic structure of a spider's legs." Icheb interrupted._  
_"Yes, Icheb," Seven smiled and tried to reach a shelf above her head. The Doctor smiled and obliged her, taking down a large glass box with a large spider in it. Icheb winced and frowned at them both. Seven took the glass box and held it tightly in her arms. "Someday you might have a pet, Icheb. I'll be sure to make faces like that at it."_  
_"If I get a pet it will not be a member of the Phylum Arthropoda, especially not spiders. They give me the creeps, to quote Lieutenant Paris."_  
_"No, it'll be a fish or a rat or lizard." Seven playfully made her own sneering face and Icheb shrugged her off. "Whatever. Anything is better than spiders."_

Spiders. Spiders. Dead best friend. Spiders. Spiders. Creepy crawly spiders.  
_Time to get to work, Doctor._

"Cephalothorax connected to the coxa." He stood up and walked out of his small, open office. He went to the back room and prepared hyposprays. Vitamin supplements, hangover antibiotics and various other medications. "Coxa is connected to the trochanter."

"Enjoying yourself?" The Doctor heard the sickbay doors close behind someone and turned.  
"Ah, Commander Chakotay. Are you here for a check up?"  
"No." Chakotay said and looked at the blonde baby in his arms. "It's Kathy. She's been screaming all night for the past few nights. I wondered if it was connected to... to Seven, or something."  
The Doctor nodded. "Maybe. I'll look into it." He took the baby from the Commander who hesitantly gave her over. "Sit down, Commander. You look tired."  
The Commander nodded and leaned against the console. "I am. Can't sleep. Kathy cries all the time. No one to... talk to, except for the baby, and however smart she is, she can't reply to me." He smiled slightly.

"How's the captain holding up? Surely you can talk to her-"

"I don't know how she's doing." Chakotay answered sharply and the Doctor looked up. "Commander, you and captain Janeway have both suffered a significant loss."  
"So?"

The Doctor frowned. "Has something transpired between the captain and you? You know, it's most common for people grieving to act irregularly during this difficult period."  
"Doctor, she seemed awfully sure of what she was doing."  
"What did she-"  
"It's not up for discussion."  
"Commander, really-"  
"You will not discuss the captain and I any further, and that's an order." Chakotay hissed angrily, but the Doctor thought it looked quite desperate too.  
"Alright, commander." The Doctor was dying to know. He loved gossip, but he loved not being forcibly deactivated more. After a few moments of inspection, the Doctor nodded. "Your baby is fine Commander. She's just teething." The Doctor went to the console, clicked the appropriate buttons and loaded the information to a PADD. He handed it to the Commander with the instruction; "It's for the replicator. Input these parameters and you will be able to replicate a teething gel toy."

Chakotay nodded and picked up Kathy again. "Thanks, Doc." He turned to leave.  
"Commander?" The Doctor called after him. The Commander turned and looked at him, but said nothing.  
"Commander, if you ever need someone to talk to... I've been studying psychology. I could be a help to you."  
"Thanks but no thanks, Doctor."  
"Commander, if you won't talk to the Captain I don't know many people you can talk to. I understand you're a very private man, but I really think talking would be best for you."  
Chakotay stood for a while, looking at his baby and sighed. "I'll think about it Doctor. Thank you anyway."  
"Glad to be of assistance."  
Chakotay left. The Doctor frowned to himself and shrugged it off. Everyone mourns in their own way.

"Cephalothorax is connected to the... coxa. Coxa is connected to the trochanter." He sung and went back to his hyposprays. He should probably talk to the captain too, now that he thought of it. In fact, now was good. Being alone made him so silent. He often talked when no one was there, to fill the space, but now in the silence he couldn't muster himself to break, he saw only Seven. He sighed, set down the hyposprays and began walking to the mess hall. He passed various crewmen on the way, they each nodded and smiled weakly, trying to make him feel better. Honestly, the Doctor felt alright. Not resentful, not hateful. He was sad, people saw it in the way he moved and spoke, but he would adapt.

_"I am Borg. I will adapt." She held her chin forward in defiance._  
_"That mantra might help you in times of distress, Seven, but you're fully human now."_  
_"I am human. I will adapt." She said, with no less conviction, but her chin was most definitely pointing down now, and less pronounced._  
_"A baby is a huge responsibility. It really shouldn't be taken lightly."_  
_"Do I look like I'm taking it lightly?" She snapped._  
_"I... I suppose not." The Doctor said._  
_"I'm sorry, Doctor. I'm nervous."_  
_"You're sure about this?" The Doctor said and took her left hand in both of his._  
_"No." She said and looked down._  
_"Seven..."_

_"I'm not. But I wish to have the hypospray anyway."_  
_"Alright. This should supply you with some extra vitamins and calcium. This, well this will help control your chemical fluxes. Mood swings and the like." Seven extended her neck, and the Doctor heard the sweeping sound of the hypospray._  
_"You believe I will suffer mood swings?" Seven said and touched her neck where he had injected her._  
_"I don't doubt it." The Doctor said and turned, furnishing other hyposprays._  
_"I... am experiencing fear. Is this natural?"_  
_"Very." The Doctor turned and looked at her, nodding sincerely._  
_"Good. __What about wanting to indulge in leola root stew until my body shuts down into unconsciousness. Is this natural?"_  
_"From my understanding, even for a craving, wanting leola root stew which mister Paris has described as "tasting of leather shoes and running your tongue along a ten meter long strip of sand paper" is not natural."_  
_Seven laughed. "Knowing it is natural... it doesn't scare me any less."_  
_"That's why I'm here, Seven. I'm your doctor."_  
_"Oh Doctor." She said and smiled up at him from her hover-chair. "Doctor, you're so much more to me than that."_

"Hey!" Someone said as the Doctor drifted right into their way and collided with them. They both fell to the floor, but the Doctor got up first. He extended his hand to the man on the ground. "I'm so sorry, Ensign Kim." Kim smiled a watery smile before taking the Doctor's hand. He heaved himself up and nodded his thanks.  
"You looked pretty adrift when you walked into me. You okay?" He asked and the Doctor nodded vigorously. "I'm fine. I'm just going to the mess hall. Want to join me?"  
"No thanks, Doc. Got work to do."  
"I see."  
"Sorry. I'll see you later then." And with that, Harry Kim sped off, not even glancing back.  
"Indeed, I do see." The Doctor said and walked to the mess hall. People bustled, silently milling around for tables. Maybe he'd talk to Neelix, mister Neelix was good to listen. He advanced a step, then stopped. Mister Neelix was gone for three years now. Who was going to tell mister Neelix about Seven. Would anyone tell him anyway?

He stood there for a moment and realised that Seven's death would probably never affect mister Neelix. How could something so big be so small that it wasn't even an issue to another person?  
He sighed and decided he'd leave the canteen in search of the captain. As he began to leave, he sang. "Cephalothorax is connected to the coxa. The coxa is connected to the trochanter. Trochanter is connected to the-"  
"Femur." Someone said behind him and his holographic (and quite metaphoric) blood froze. He turned slowly.  
"Femur is connected to the patella." Seven of Nine hummed happily and swung her perfectly functioning legs off of a table left unoccupied. She stood up and smiled. "What's wrong, Doctor? You look ill."

The Doctor blinked, quite on purpose and stared, before his eyes grew wide. "Doctor to Lieutenant Torres, I need your assistance in the mess hall."  
"_What's wrong, Doc?"_  
"Yes, Doctor, what's wrong?" Seven cooed and frowned.

"Just, stay away from me!" The Doctor said to Seven and tried to go to his office. He walked right into Seven, who had somehow managed to stand in his way as he went the opposite direction.  
"_Excuse me?" _B'Elanna said.  
"Lieutenant, you have to help me!"  
_"On my way. Torres out."_

The Doctor stared at Seven and twelve memories of conversation he had with her flashed in his head within nanoseconds. Seven of Nine smiled and touched his cheek softly. "Doctor, do not be afraid. We're friends, remember?"  
"No, there's no way you could be real, Seven."  
"Why, Doctor? Would you rather I look like this?"  
Suddenly her biosuit opened up and a dark, violet whole formed with a sucking sound. Shredded, pink organs poked out and blood ran all the way down to her feet.

"Or like this?" She fell to the floor, her legs no longer functional. They lay at funny angles, and the Doctor winced just to look at her. A droplet of blood oozed out of the corner of her mouth and she smiled up at him. "Better?" She asked and her eyes glazed over, they way they had when she'd died.  
The Doctor screamed.  
"Doctor! Can you hear me?" Lieutenant Commander Paris asked.  
"Can't you see her?" The Doctor asked, his voice full of terror.  
"See who? Seven?"  
"Yes!" What a relief, for a second the Doctor thought he was the only-  
"No, Doctor. Seven isn't there."

Before he had a chance to react, Seven caught his eye again.  
"He's lying to you." Suddenly Seven was slumped in her hover chair, speeding out of the mess hall. The Doctor ran after her. Tom tried grabbing him, but his hand went straight through the Doctor. Tom touched his comm. badge. "B'Elanna, report to sickbay, deactivate the Doctor and run a diagnostic."  
"_Tom, I'm just after running all the way to the mess hall doors._"  
"I need you to run to sickbay, as fast as you can. Please."  
"_On my way._"  
"Paris out."

Paris stared at where the Doctor had been looking. He looked very hard, for anything. A blonde hair, a drop of blood, anything that might suggest Seven wasn't really dead. Aliens, temporal paradox, anything. But nothing really seemed to argue with a hole through her stomach the size of a cannon ball.  
"Paris to the captain. Captain, we have a problem." he said as he tapped his comm. badge  
_"What?"_ She asked, and Tom had to admit he was slightly taken aback by her manner.  
"It's the Doctor. He says he saw Seven."  
He listened to her silence for a few moments, then her shaky voice; _"Get a security team to sickbay and another to find him."_  
"Yes ma'am."  
_"...Thank you, Tom."_  
"You're very welcome, captain."

=/\=

"Vulcans are taught to control such emotions as this when they are young." Tuvok said and held the white teacup up and drank from it. Icheb frowned and clenched his fists, then unclenched them. "How so?" He asked and stared across the table at Tuvok, who almost smiled. Almost.  
"Vulcans are different. They are trained from a young age with deep meditation and intent studies."

"I study." Icheb mumbled. These... emotions, they galloped through his veins and contracted his throat, sent shivers through his legs. He didn't know what to make of most of them. The fire in his belly when he thought of Seven's killers was... multifaceted. He felt so angry that it was white hot, a large needle in his stomach, making him want to grind his teeth until they cracked, or crack his knuckles until they were ground to dust. On the other hand, when he focused he felt so cold that it also stung. Ice burn. The ice burn was a hundred times more lonely. No one could hear you when you were trapped in a cocoon of ice, and you couldn't hear anyone else either, for that matter.

There was also the stabbing when he saw her old alcove, or her quarters with Commander Chakotay. The intangible sinking in his stomach that told him something was off. The stinging in his eyes when he saw her child. It was too much. There were too many to list. So many emotions, there surely wasn't enough of him to sustain all of them.

"I am no Vulcan Master. I am hardly Vulcan. You should ask any other Vulcan."  
"I'm asking you, Professor."  
"I taught you in many of your subjects, and that is why you call me professor, yes?"  
"Of course." Icheb frowned and looked at the Vulcan.

"Thank you for clarifying. I was unsure if that was real or not."  
Icheb had no reply, so he hunched over and let the angry bit into his inner self.

"Are you real?" Tuvok asked.  
"What?" Icheb said and looked up.  
"Are you real?" Tuvok said and outstretched a shaking hand.  
"I don't want to play this game again now, Professor."  
"Are you real?" Tuvok hissed and leaned close top Icheb, desperate for an answer.  
"Yes," Icheb sighed. He took Tuvok's hand and allowed Tuvok to inspect Icheb's hands and fingerprints for himself.  
"Captain Janeway is real?"  
"Yes."  
"T'Pel?"  
"Yes."  
"Are you sure?"  
"Yes! I'm very, very sure!" Icheb snapped.  
"Seven is dead?"

Icheb stopped breathing for a little while, and simply stared at Tuvok. "How do you know that?" Usually, his professor didn't know his own name. He never knew much about what went on on the ship.  
"A woman came here and she told me," he said simply. "She started to cry, and she sat right over there," Tuvok pointed to another chair in his quarters. "She sat there and she cried, like you do."

"I have never engaged in that activity while in another's presence." Icheb said starkly.  
"No. But," Tuvok hunched over like Icheb had been doing, and linked his fingers over his lap. "This is what she did. And then she shook her shoulders. I remember thinking it was strange at the time."  
Icheb thought for a moment. "What did she look like?"  
"She was a candle creature. The more she stayed there, the more her features burned and I could not see her."

_Of course. Just his luck. _"I want to talk to her."  
"No you do not."  
"Yes, I do." Icheb said.  
"You want Seven. You do not want to talk about her."  
"I..." He faltered. "I want to go to sleep. We must cut our dinner short, Professor Tuvok."  
"Who is Tuvok?" Tuvok asked. Icheb didn't look back at Tuvok, just winced and walked away.  
When he walked out, he was suddenly knocked out of the way by the Doctor. The Doctor was running incredibly fast, but Icheb didn't ask why, mostly because by the time he'd opened his mouth, the Doctor was gone.

=/\=

The Doctor had so little time. He just get around a corner when she'd get away. She, flying on her hover chair with her dead legs, was fast enough to elude him constantly, slow enough to drive him mad with hope. "Seven!" The Doctor screamed after her and pushed crew members out of the way. How did she get around them? He needed to find her, he had been all right this morning when there was no hope, no way of getting her back. Now here she was and he hurt more than ever.  
Two hundred and ninety four memories of Seven played rampant in his holographic head.

He scrambled after her, taking leaps and bounds faster than most Organics could. He heard his feet pound against the floor, toes only touching because he propelled himself forward so. "Seven!" He screamed. "Seven, come back!" His voice was shrill with desperation. "Seven!" He cried, but as he outstretched his hand to grab her, he saw his pixels dissolve. Oh no.  
He was being transferred.

In nano seconds he suddenly materialized in sickbay, Seven sitting on the biobed again. She was so close, so awfully tantalisingly close. The Doctor tried to run at her, but B'Elanna was in the way. He ran right past her, but knocked her to the ground in the process.  
B'Elanna shouted and suddenly Seven was gone. She just... disappeared. The Doctor gulped, turned and faced B'Elanna. "Lieutenant Torres, I saw... I saw Seven."  
B'Elanna creased her brow, but said only one, quiet sentence as she heaved an elbow up to prop her body. "I ran a diagnostic." She said and got to her knees, her pregnant stomach protruding. "Your program... it's destabilizing."


End file.
